La Cina sconvolge l’America: robot umanoidi, città intelligenti e supercar!

The Race to the Future. China. Our journey begins here. Today, we’ll visit the most important and largest cities in China and witness the revolution in technology and robotics, factories, laboratories, robots. Today, we’ll see firsthand what’s known as the race to the future. But the bigger question is can China surpass America? Elon Musk. Today, we’ll explore this intense rivalry. and see China from the inside. China today isn’t just about factories and cheap goods, China is a factory of ideas and minds building the future. This is China. This is a nightmare for Tesla. Chinese car maker, BYD China. This is Shenzhen, a city that was a small fishing village just decades ago, and today, it’s the city of the future. Here, dreams are built and innovations are born. We are in the Silicon Valley of the East, the city of technology and artificial intelligence. People here are taking a moment to rest after making great inventions and discoveries. This is Shenzhen, in southern China. This is the city where BYD was born the largest electric car company in the world. We’ll start with their factory. They have a beautiful success story we’ll discover. Welcome to the BYD factory, the number one electric car company in the world. This is BYD’s most expensive car. Electric. Its price is $250,000. Whoa. It's really fast. It's so fast. That is a bonkers electric supercar. They say this car can even dance. Look how. They are going to make it dance? -Yeah. -How? It can move in place. Its features aren’t available in any other car in the world. It’s a form of entertainment. They have many models, like this one, for example. This character means electricity. It's pretty like the lightning. So this is a BYD but has a different logo? Under the BYD company, but it's a different brand. It's an electric brand. The design of the matrix of the light means the galaxy. It's a hybrid vehicle. This energy tower will flash and tell you how much energy you have already charged. So, tell me something about BYD. We just heard the news, like, about five minutes, you can charge 400 kilometers. Is that true? Yes, that is true. So you beat everyone like this? Yeah, of course. Definitely. You guys just released the fastest charger in the world. Yes. So, basically, one second for two kilometers, and in five minutes we can reach 400 kilometers. BYD started as a battery company in 1995. Yes, it is. So you guys are using your own battery. -That's why you are successful. -Yes. -We sold over 4 million cars last year. -Okay. We produce over 4 million vehicle-use batteries. And you are guys selling batteries to other companies, right? -Yeah, of course. We do. -BYD's sales surpassed Tesla's last year. Yeah, of course, more than Tesla. Congrats, man. Congrats. You are hard-working. This isn’t promotional advertising, it’s part of China’s rise and how it got here. China works silently. You can do this to make it spin 360 degrees, then you press “Start.” It spins in place. Look how many chargers this company has! Look. You can see from 1995 that the revenues were very low. This is where they started in 1995. They began in a small apartment for the first five years, selling batteries. They entered the automotive world in 2003, and people mocked them for being late. Now here we are in 2025. Right now, we have over 1 million employees. -Wow. -Yes. How huge is this company? Yes, it's very huge. And also, we have over 100,000 engineers. And as you can see here, it's a wall of patents. Look at all the patents they’re displaying here. This is a part of them. They’ve sold 11 million cars. Which countries do you sell the most cars to after China? Brazil and Thailand, probably. Our batteries are all lying down there, like blades. These are BYD batteries, look where they place them, under the car. -It’s your famous battery, right? -Yes, the famous blade battery. The secret behind BYD’s edge over many companies is this battery, the Blade battery, an electric battery made of lithium iron phosphate. It has a smart, blade-like design, long like a sword. That’s why they call it the Blade battery. Now it’s going to park itself. If you’re the car’s owner, you’re the only one who can get out and leave it to park itself. This is where it all started. They started making batteries in a small apartment. This is the original location. This is where the story began. It’s the same building we’re in right now. 2025. In 1995, this is how they clocked in for work. You place it here like this, then it prints your check-in time. BYD stands for “Build Your Dreams." And here it’s written in Chinese, “Build Your Dreams.” So many negative comments. Oh, my God. “You’d better give up.” “Just ugly.” All the media attacked them, no one believed they would make cars. These are the comments the media said about them, they now display them in a museum. They tried many times, but success didn’t come easily. Even Elon Musk mocked them. Have you seen their car? So now, after all those comments, yes or no? The future. The Chinese carmaker, BYD… Beating rival Tesla on revenue for the first time since 2018. This car has a feature not found in many other vehicles. It’s about to swim now. This is for any emergency that may arise. The water is really deep. The wheels don’t touch the ground. This is normal? The water level is so high! Bro, we are actually diving, not swimming. -You can open the window, no problem. -Really? This car can swim for up to 30 minutes. I’m going into the water. No way. Oh, my God. Did I just ruin the car? No matter how deep it is, it will still float. So practically, the car just turned into a boat. Respect. The only issue is sea water. If you drive into the sea, it will break down, don’t get too excited and swim it into the sea. It’s useful for floodwater and rain, but not saltwater. The main reason for BYD’s success is that they make everything in the car themselves. They even manufacture trains like this one called the “SkyShuttle,” and they export it to the world. It’s used in São Paulo, Brazil. This isn’t just a car company, it’s a tech company. Now we’re entering the factory. These are the staff dormitories. Do you know how many electric cars BYD produces per minute? They produce one car per minute, and 1,400 cars per day in this factory. They’re right next to the port, so they export to the entire world. BYD is taking over the world. Almost everything is done by robots. Look, robots. Now it’s the final inspection phase. After that, we went back to the city. All cars with a green license plate mean they’re electric, while a blue plate means they run on fuel. Green plate. Green plate. Green plate. Electric car. That car isn’t electric. It must feel alone among all the electric vehicles. Look at this, it feels like you’re in San Francisco, but you’re actually in a country of safety. There are cameras everywhere, no homeless people, and no risk of theft, unlike San Francisco, where you can’t park your car without someone smashing its windows. We’re about to order a coffee, and it’ll be delivered by a drone -A drone coming from the sky? -A drone will fly your coffee here. This city even has drone delivery. We’re going to place an order now, and the drone will deliver it. -There’s an app called WeChat. -WeChat. We’ve reached the point where drones deliver orders instead of humans. Now the drone will go to the restaurant and bring it? Yes. I’m ordering. They loaded the order here, from this spot, which is the hub with many stores in this mall. So they place the order into the drone, and it takes off toward the place we selected earlier. It’s coming. It didn’t spill. This service is only available in a few areas of Shenzhen for now, but it could spread everywhere in the future. They have self-driving cars. No driver! -They’ve placed a dummy inside. -Yes. Okay, we are going to scan. You can see how the car moves through the screen. You order it through the app, and it comes to you and drives on its own. It says we’ll arrive in 24 minutes. If you want to get out, just press here. You go drive us. Why not? Trip view. If there were an accident now, who would we blame? There’s no driver to hold accountable. The robot is breaking the law. Young, hardworking, and smart of Shenzhen. She's going to pay with her palm. You can even pay with your palm in this city. First, you have to register your palm print with the WeChat app to be able to pay. She paid. And they have a robot that delivers orders right to your hotel room. It's taking the elevator on its own! It arrived here, then called me. Thank you. Everything you just saw is part of daily life in the streets of Shenzhen. But this is just the beginning. In Chinese airports, you can find your gate using facial recognition technology. You place your face here, and it tells you your gate. Shenzhen to Hangzhou. Gate 37. And now, on to the heart of the East, where beauty meets history. It’s one of China’s oldest capitals and has been ranked multiple times as one of the happiest cities in China. The city that embraces West Lake, designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Today, it’s also home to Unitree Robotics. I’m here with the G1. They announced this recently. It has incredible flexibility. It's one of the most advanced humanoid robots in the world. I’m taller than it. They say it’s almost impossible to make it fall. Its joints allow for amazing movement. This is Unitree Robotics, here in China, in the city of Hangzhou. It’s greeting me. Now we’re taking it for a walk to see how people on the street react. How many cameras does this have? It’s 1.27 meters tall. Thirty-five kg. Weighs 35 kilograms. So I can buy this one and put it in my home? Yeah, sure. It costs $16,000, imagine! Its joints can perform incredible motions. He's going to fight? Be careful. So we're training the robot to understand how it can do the kung fu action. We sell to tech companies and universities. Actually, normal people can buy it now. It's okay. No problem. But actually, the function is not much more. Do you have customers who bought this already? Some influencers. Influencers. Yeah. They buy it to do an unboxing. And also, we have the software. Are we in 2050 or what? Even though it’s controlled by a remote, it’s still amazing. They’re competing with the world now, competing with Boston Dynamics. It rivals the Atlas robot from Boston Dynamics in the U.S. It’s kind of scary. It’s not going to move, right? I hope so. Everyone’s amazed by it. Now we’re taking it to a café. This could cook in the future, and be your assistant at home. Now we’re going to have coffee with my robot. Let’s go. Let’s go drink coffee, you and I. From there. The battery lasts only two hours. I bought it a coffee. My new friend. Morning routine. Look how it’s about to stand up. Let’s dance. It can stand on its hands. They pack it in a box like this and ship it to you. Hello. Unitree, thank you. Thank you, Unitree. And now we’re heading to the city of... This is Shanghai. First light in Shanghai. The Chinese would not have built a city this way. The history of modern Shanghai was written in the logs and ledgers of our great-grandfathers. Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Shanghai. Step into China's world of advanced transportation and stunning architecture. Join me as we explore Shanghai's vibrant cityscape under the evening lights. It’s home to the fastest train in the world, from the airport to the city and vice versa. They’re competing with Japan. Let’s see. It reached a speed of 431 km/h, though today it runs at 300 km/h on the route between the airport and the city. The world speed record still belongs to a Japanese test train that reached 603 km/h in 2015. Shanghai is the economic capital of China and its vibrant financial heart. But China has much more to offer. Then we headed north. We arrived in Shandong Province to visit the EX-Robot factory. Let's go. Few people have received permission to enter. It’s home to EX-Robot, a company specializing in humanoid robots. Welcome to EX-Robot. This is where they build humanoid robots. We’re accompanied by the company’s founder himself. He said, “This is our first robot.” And this is gold? Yeah. He can do a human movement, and he can talk. This is the first thing you see. Now what are we gonna see inside? Put your face in front of the screen and try to move it, and you're going to see that he follows you. What percentage did they reach in being close to humans? 98% he thinks. Now we’re entering the room where you’ll see the future, where you’ll see how far China has come in humanoid robotics. They’re building an army in this room. This is the newest robot that they got in EX-Robot. This is the new one. That’s scary. Look at the skin. Look at the details. Could they pose a threat to humanity one day? This is the first EX-Robot that can walk. For the future, we will have a full complete robot humanoid one. In the future, they’ll be used in fields like education and healthcare. They’ll become part of society. In the future, robots are going to build robots. They think that robots in the future we can use them in education, in services, and to help old people in hospitals. So he thinks that we really need robots in the future. She’s looking at me. It means that in the future we are going to have more robots. More robots, and maybe we cannot stop this. Yes. He said machines will never get tired of building robots. Think like a factory building cars. It never stops. Never stops. A robot is building another robot, look at how they’re assembling the parts. Let’s see how AI is being used. He said look at all these faces behind you, so which one is his face? Look for it. -This one. -Yes. I found it. -Elon Musk. -Yes. He knows that his face is here? What is it made of? It’s made from silicone gel. Why is it huge? Take it like art. Did we just step into a Chinese village? This is like the traditional Chinese dress. These robots will also be used for tourism purposes. He scared me. Put your hand. What is happening? The doctor can just read your hand and tell you how your health is, whether you are healthy or not. Thank you, Doctor. And here, we are in the modern hospital. It's a robot performing an operation on a human. They cannot put a human there, so they just put a robot. So they hope that in the future, robots are going to help humans in the hospital, in operations, in medicine. This is how they’ll assemble humanoid robots. It can punch? All of these are things that will help us as humanity. We are the first foreigners to enter this museum. Thank you. Thank you. You’ll feel like you’re in a sci-fi movie. Look. Is this a funeral or what? This is the latest skin robot they could do. You can touch the skin, it feels real. Which hand is real, and which one is the robot’s? Welcome to the future. Welcome to the future, my friend. Okay. This is like trying to produce humans. -Really? -Yes. While the U.S. and other global powers were busy waging wars and conflicts here and there, China was quietly reshuffling the deck to rewrite the rules of the game. calmly and effectively. Beethoven. It scared me. It attacked her. Imagine. Britain once ruled the world, then quietly stepped off the stage after two world wars. So, is it time for America to quietly step back too?